


chainstitch

by NightsMistress



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, background Neku/Joshua
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:04:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5973475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been several years since Shiki first woke up in UG Shibuya. Time passes, friends move away, but the connections you make remain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chainstitch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [violacein](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violacein/gifts).



> Thank you to Samuraiter for the speedy beta!

The name ‘Scramble Crossing’ didn’t do the intersection justice: The crossing stretching below from Shiki’s viewpoint window was a frenetic, kinetic mass of people all heading in different directions across the intersection in a chaotic handful of time. She had crossed it earlier to get from Shibuya Station to 104, and it had felt like a wild, strange heart pumping people and ideas and life from one part of Shibuya to another.

In a way, that was exactly what the Scramble Crossing was.

The crossing wasn’t the same from year to year. It changed, as Shibuya changed, and Shiki’s perceptions of it changed as she changed.

The Starbucks she was currently sitting in had not been there when she had been in UG Shibuya, of course. That had been a recent addition, Shibuya’s uncharacteristically late adoption of a trend rather than leading the pack. It was busy, and sometimes she really liked the drinks, but it lacked the soul that WildKat had. Shiki wasn’t sure if she liked Starbucks or not.

Neku, she knew, hated it. _Why the hell are we meeting there?_ he would text every time when she suggested that they catch up for coffee, and every time she would reply _Because it’s tradition, Neku!_ Beat didn’t hold strong views about it, though he thought the dual-language menu meant that there was a secret menu for English speakers, and so would read it aloud as he thought it would be pronounced, to the consternation of everyone around him.

Shiki was early, as she usually was, and so she spent her time people-watching. She liked the charm one of the girls was wearing in her hair, a winged bell that chimed softly as she moved her head. Her friend’s long, curled hair was pinned away from her face with a hairpin in the shape of two wings. Shiki hadn’t seen either of these ornaments before, but she thought it had the feel of a nascent trend. She made a note of it in her phone to try and incorporate into her design assignment for the week. By the time her teachers at her fashion design school reviewed it, there would had been a fashion flashpoint and then everyone would be wearing bell and wing charms.

 _You’re so good at predicting future trends,_ her teachers often told her.

 _How do you do it?_ her classmates asked.

In response Shiki would smile sheepishly and say that she just did a lot of people-watching. She didn’t say that she used to be able to bring about the trends in the first place.

At ten past the hour Beat walked in, unusually before Neku. Shiki didn’t need to turn away from her window seat to know he was there, because Shibuya itself seemed to respond. It seemed to do that with ex-participants from the Game, as if Shibuya knew them and welcomed them home with every footfall. She turned anyway and smiled in greeting.

The smile widened as she took in his outfit, and she nodded slightly in approval. The chain slung around Beat’s neck was a bit behind the fashion curve, rather than ahead, and the shoes were a little too scuffed, but the lines of his sleeveless shirt and knee-length shorts suited his frame, and the print was very on point. Most importantly, he made the whole outfit work for him in a way that drew the eye.

She waved him over.

“Hey, Shiki!” Beat called as he strode over to her table. It was interesting to watch Beat walk, Shiki found, because he walked like he was rapping in time with Shibuya’s pulse, all decisive heavy foot-falls and driving rhythm. He dragged a chair out and spun it around, straddling it rather than sitting in it.

“Hey, Beat,” Shiki said. Normally she would ask how the other person was doing, but she’d learned from experience that Beat didn’t really like to talk about his home life. She was aware that his parents were disappointed in his retail job, and talked about how he could have done so much more with his potential, and thought it would be too cruel to ask him for further details. Instead, she went on to safer topics. “How’s Rhyme?”

“She’s doin’ great, y’know? Acin’ all her classes, everyone loves her. Don’t get what she’s talkin’ about, though, but I don’t haveta. It’s _her_ dream.” Beat glowed with pride as he spoke, his gestures becoming more expansive and open.

Shiki could understand that. It’d been a long and hard road for Rhyme to create new dreams after she’d given up her old ones.

“Do you know what she’s going to do when she leaves school?” Shiki asked, propping her chin up with her hand. “She’s done the entrance exams, right?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Beat said emphatically. He grinned. “Aced ‘em all too. All the universities want her.”

“That’s great! I really should catch up with her again at some point. It’s just been so hard to fit in around … everything. But I definitely will!”

“She’d like that,” Beat agreed. “She talks about you all the time afterward.”

Shiki felt herself blush. “Aw, that’s sweet!” she said. “Well, I’ll definitely do it then. It’s a promise!”

“So where’s Phones?”

Shiki shrugged. “I don’t know. He might have missed his train?”

She privately thought it was more likely that he was running late because he had slept in, as the train on his line ran every minute, and it wasn’t that long to transfer at Shinjuku to the Yamanote Line. Still, it _was_ rather early to be catching up, she supposed.

As if summoned by their conversation, Neku arrived. He scanned the crowd. Shiki could tell when he saw them by the way that his expression changed from passive disinterest to a slight smile.

Neku, unlike Beat, was dressed against the latest trends for his subculture. Aggressively so, even; his leather wrist band was the wrong shape and color and tied completely wrong, the lines of his purple shirt had been fashionable six months ago, and his dull-grey shorts had never been fashionable. Accompanied by a pair of dirty red trainers, and Neku looked less like someone in tune with Shibuya as someone actively resisting it.

Shiki suspected that he and Joshua had been fighting. Again.

“Phones!” Beat yelled, drawing the attention of nearby patrons. “You’ve been keepin’ us waitin’, yo!”

Neku, who hadn’t worn the ear-covering headphones in at least three years, shook his head in exaggerated disbelief. “It’s not that late.”

“I said ten A.M., Neku. It’s quarter-past!” Shiki chided.

“It’s a weekend,” Neku pointed out. “I was up late last night helping out Mr H, remember?"

Shiki had forgotten that Neku had started up a part time job at WildKat to cover the shortfall in his rent and living expenses.

“Sorry, Neku,” Shiki said, guilt twisting her stomach. “I had forgotten.”

“It’s fine,” Neku said, waving his hand dismissively. “You said in your text you had something important to tell us?”

“Oh!” Shiki exclaimed, flushing. She reached into her bag and drew out two strips of cardboard and placed them on the table. “I have a fashion show next week,” she said. “It’s nothing big but I have two spare tickets and … I’d like you guys to come.”

Beat looked confused. “Us? Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! Neku, you’ll definitely come, right?”

“Yeah,” Neku said. “I’ll come. I want to see what the real Shiki designs.” He smiled crookedly as he said it, and on anyone else that would look like he was undercutting his words as he felt they were ridiculous. On Neku, it meant that he thought it was ridiculous, but that he wanted to say it anyway.

“Great!” Shiki said, sliding one ticket across to each of them. “The show’s at the end of the month, and you’d better be there! I’ll be watching out for you.”

“I’ll make sure Phones here comes,” Beat promised.

“I just _said_ I was going,” Neku protested.

The situation was so absurdly them that Shiki couldn’t help the giggles that bubbled out of her. Both Neku and Beat turned to her, looking aggrieved. That did little to stop her laughter.

“I’m sorry!” she said. “That was just so … _you_.”

“Thanks!” Beat said sunnily.

“That’s not a compliment,” Neku muttered.

“What? Shiki!” Beat protested loudly. The people around them pointedly did not turn around, presumably having accepted that Beat was going to be rudely loud and there was little to be done for it. “Why you gotta do that? Phones, I get, but you?”

“No, no!” Shiki said quickly. “I really did mean it as a compliment! I wouldn’t have invited you two along if I didn’t like you.”

“Told ya,” Beat said, folding his arms and grinning smugly at Neku.

Neku raised his eyebrows skeptically in reply. “It’s definitely not a compliment. She’s screwing with you.”

“Neku!”

That, at least, hadn’t changed. Several years since they had woken up in UG Shibuya, and Neku was still abrasively blunt, even to the people he had let into his world. It was reassuring to Shiki. Even though they had drifted apart with school and work, moments like this reminded her that the bond they had forged together at the Shibuya River was not so easily shaken by the passage of time. 

As Neku and Beat bickered about whether Shiki was insulting them, and whether Neku truly had agreed to go to Shiki’s show, Shiki couldn’t help but smile to herself. Her world ended with her, and the people she let in, and she was so glad she had let these two into her world.


End file.
